Carmina

After trekking through the Southland bridal salons and fancier department stores, my friend decided to get the bridesmaid dresses made. She got a good recommendation from her future mother-​in-​law and we set off for Monrovia to meet with this woman.
We showed her a picture of the dress from David’s Bridal (see pictures in profile) and she said she could easily replicate the dresses. The reason we didn’t get the dresses there originally was because the shade of orange was all wrong in person (beautiful in the picture, very ORANGE in person).
The bride went cloth shopping with the seamstress and she called to tell me they bought slightly different material. Instead of satin, it was going to be chiffon over silk. Okay, that should be fine, right?
No, the dresses turned out completely differently. The seamstress took it upon herself to change the design because she’s a «true» artist. She made me look at her drawings of angels, sent me to get her take-​out (she lives off of Taco Bell and Popeye’s down the street) and even made me and the bride take out her trash once! I could not believe this woman.
Yes, at first, I felt bad for her because making clothes is her source of income (she’s in a wheelchair) and works out of her very cluttered smelly home but after multiple visits and seeing the dress changing from slim fitting to oversized sack was not my idea of a good time.
In the end, one of the other bridesmaids who had gone to fashion school had to alter the dresses to something we wouldn’t be ashamed of walking down the aisle.
Please note the pictures of the saggy chest on my dress to the eventual altered one. The other bridesmaid had to change up the shoulders but didn’t really have time to fit it to me, it was still too big and would slip off to reveal a bra strap. Having the bride and/​or photographer yelling at me to hide the straps repeatedly during the wedding was very stressful.
I so do not recommend hiring this seamstress. You’ll be subjected to her rambling stories, farts and shoddy work.